A.P. Møller – Maersk (APM-Maersk) is a Danish shipping company which was founded in 1904. Originally the company performed transportation and logistics services. In 1962, the company expanded its operations and added another division, namely, the energy sector. Most of the company’s profit is generated from transport and logistics services, with roughly 70 percent of the APM-Maersk’s global revenue. Between the fiscal year 2018 to the fiscal year 2020, the revenue figures of APM-Maersk remained somewhat stable, fluctuating around 39 billion U.S. dollars with a high deviation. In the fiscal year 2020, the revenue of the company was over 39.7 billion U.S. dollars. Interestingly, the assets owned by APM-Maersk declined over the same period, down to 56 million U.S. dollars in 2020. Despite the declining asset size, APM-Maersk was the world’s leading container ship operator based on twenty-foot equivalents (TEUs) capacity, with over 4.2 million TEUs as of September 30, 2021.
Efficient and cost-effective global logistics and transportation services play a crucial role in facilitating the industrial economy. In 2020, the size of the European logistics market was over 1.6 trillion euros. The logistics market in Europe has a centuries-long history with strong roots in facilitating the European industrial economy. In 2020, the total value of industrial and logistics investments in Europe was over 38 billion euros. Yet, the major logistics services are dependent on economic and industrial performance. Therefore, if there are economic shocks, then it also affects the logistics market relative to an economic shock. For instance, the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak affected the global economy with a large magnitude and persistence. The year-on-year freight tonne kilometer (FTK) declined exponentially since the beginning of 2020, down by roughly 42 percent in April 2020 compared to April 2019. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 outbreak had a remarkable impact on the logistics and transportation services as well.
